PSYCHOLOGY

Learning links hues, letters

If written letters or numbers seem extra colorful to you - if "A," for instance, is actually a scarlet letter - then you may have a condition known as synesthesia.

In a study published this month in Psychological Science, Stanford University researchers suggest that learning and memory may play a big role in synesthesia.

At the beginning and end of a seven-year period, 11 people with synesthesia were asked to match letters with colors. Their matches were largely consistent between testing sessions, the researchers said.

In addition, the participants were presented with colored letters for one second each and asked to indicate whether the color lined up with their synesthetic association. They did so rapidly and accurately, a sign of true synesthesia, the researchers said.

What's more, the researchers said, the subjects' pairings matched magnetic, colored letters that they had seen as children, suggesting that their synesthesia may have been in part learned.

SLEEP

Rest improves loving feeling

A new study found that sleep deprivation can make couples too tired to act grateful for each other and end up with one or both of them feeling taken for granted.

The study involved 60 couples. In one experiment, participants kept a journal of their sleep patterns and how the quality of their rest affected their appreciation of their partner. In another experiment, they were videotaped while solving problems, and those who had slept poorly the night before acted less grateful for their significant other.

Overall, a bad night's sleep makes people less attuned to their partner's moods, researchers said.

MENOPAUSE

Early onset tied to cancer gene

Women who have mutations in the BRCA genes that put them at much higher risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer may also go through menopause significantly earlier than other women, according to a UCSF study.

The study, which is considered the first to look at the BRCA 1 and BRCA genes and the onset of menopause, means women with the abnormal mutation may have a briefer window to get pregnant and should consider childbearing at an earlier age if possible.

Researchers discovered these women experienced menopause at age 50, compared to 53 for the general population. They also found that carriers of the mutation who are heavy smokers - meaning they smoke more than 20 cigarettes a day - experience menopause even earlier, at 46.

The study group involved nearly 400 carriers of the BRCA mutation in Northern California. The researchers compared their onset of menopause to 765 women without the mutation who lived in the same area.

BREAST CANCER

Metastasis spurred when key protein low

UCSF researchers have described for the first time how the absence or loss of a key protein can spur the spread of breast cancer cells to distant organs within the body, a process known as metastasis.

When the protein, known as GATA3, is present, it appears to turn off many of the genes that are responsible for metastasis. But when GATA3 is abnormal or absent, as it is in many cases of breast cancer, those cancerous cells are able to break free and move away from a tumor mass, encouraging the development of blood vessels that help spread and nourish cancer growth in new locations.

What the researchers found was that GATA3 has the ability to activate a previously unknown molecule - called microRNA29b - and that molecule, in turn, is then able to stop protein production from other genes that drives metastasis. If GATA3 isn't doing its job, then microRNA29b can't do its work.

The UCSF scientists found that restoring microRNA29b to a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer helped stop the spread of the disease in mice.

Researchers hope that better understanding the molecular processes of how the disease metastasizes will help them be able to identify more drug targets. In this case, a drug could help reactivate these molecules that appear to restrain cancerous cells but are somehow lost when the cancer is able to spread throughout the body.

The research appeared Sunday in the online edition of the journal Nature Cell Biology.

- Victoria Colliver

DNA

New way to snip out sections

A new method of cutting DNA developed by UC Berkeley researchers has been shown in a number of studies to work in humans.

The method is a cheaper and easier way to snip DNA than established processes, while still allowing researchers to target a specific piece of DNA and replace it with an introduced strand. That allows researchers to remove harmful, mutated DNA strands and substitute in normal strands.

The new approach requires less genetic material and fewer proteins than the older techniques.

The method relies on an enzyme called Cas9 that was found in the immune system of bacteria that are able to snip their DNA as a defense mechanism against viruses. The researchers published their findings in June in the journal Science.

Two papers recently published in the journal Science Express showed the new technique can work in human cells as well. Another paper by one of the original UC Berkeley researchers that found similar results in human cells is set to be published in the journal eLife.

SPINAL SURGERY

Two surgeons better than 1

Having too many cooks in the kitchen is apparently not a phrase that applies to spinal surgeries. Well, two surgeons isn't too many, according to a new UCSF study.

Two UCSF spinal surgeons teamed up starting in 2007 on a complex procedure and found that, on average, they finished in five hours compared to eight hours for surgeries with one attending physician.

Their patients also lost less blood, had fewer complications and spent less time overall in the hospital.

The surgeons focused their study on a procedure called pedicle subtraction osteotomy, a realignment of the spine. Their comparison was based on 42 surgeries done by a single surgeon and 36 procedures done by two surgeons.

In other fields, more than one attending surgeon often participate in complicated surgeries, but that has not been the case with spinal surgeries.

The surgeons published their study this month in the inaugural issues of the journal Spine Deformity.